Solo seemed reluctant to say more. In the silence that followed, Charley Pine put the question, “So what do we do now?”
“Canada,” Solo said. “There is a place on the southwest shore of Hudson’s Bay, with a cave that was used by ancient people. We can put the saucer in the bay.”
“If it isn’t covered with ice.”
“If there is an ice sheet, it will be thin. We’ll put the saucer in, then let the ice freeze on top of it.”
“We aren’t really dressed for the Canadian winter,” Egg pointed out.
“Get coats and winter gear. Boots. Sleeping bags if you have them. Blankets. Everything you can carry. And matches. We’ll make do.” He scrutinized their faces. “I’ve had some experience with that.”
Ten minutes later they gathered again on the porch. Everyone had bundles. Egg locked the door behind them.
They trooped down the hill to the saucer resting on the stone outcropping. As they approached, it lifted off the rock into a hover.
The saucer set out at a walking pace toward the two-acre farm pond on the other side of Egg’s runway. The people trailed along toting their bundles.
Egg flew the saucer into the middle of the pond, dipped it once in the water to get it wet and raised it about four inches above the surface.
“Better cover your eyes,” he said.
All of them turned their backs and put their hands over their eyes. Still, the flash that followed was so bright they could see it through their eyelids. In seconds the first flash was followed by another as millions of volts coursed from the saucer into the water of the pond, then into the earth. The electrons in the atoms of the saucer were making quantum leaps in their orbits, releasing extraordinary amounts of energy.
Three more flashes followed, then Egg’s voice. “That’s it, I think.”
They turned and looked. The saucer was back to its normal size, about seventy feet in diameter. It looked black and ominous in the diffused morning sunlight.
Egg opened the refueling cap on top of the saucer and submerged it into the pond. The water level rose a few feet, then seemed to subside somewhat as water rushed into the saucer’s tank.
When the gurgling stopped and the surface of the pond was once again placid, he lifted the saucer from the water. It looked majestic rising slowly, dark and wet. When it was free of the water, Egg brought it over to the shore and sat it down on the ground a few feet from them. The hatch opened slowly. They all began shoving bundles in.
“Mr. Solo, do you want to fly it?”
“Why not?” Solo said and led the way into the ship. As Egg and Charley stowed their gear, Rip ran into the hangar to grab his fishing rod and tackle. When he returned, he threw it up into the saucer and clambered aboard. Solo was already in the pilot’s seat, and the reactor was on, the computer displays dancing vividly across the screens. Rip closed the hatch. Everyone took a seat and strapped in.
The presentations continued to dance across the screens in front of Solo, as fast as thought as he ran the built-in tests of every system in the ship. Two minutes passed as Rip and Charley and Uncle Egg sat silently, alone with their thoughts.
“Is everyone ready?” Solo asked. He already had the saucer off the ground and the landing gear retracting. He moved out over Egg’s runway, accelerating.
The passengers said “Yes” simultaneously. The saucer continued to accelerate on the antigravity system. Then the rocket engines ignited, giving just minimum boost. The acceleration continued, pressing everyone back into their seats.
The nose rose into the sky as the flame from the rockets increased steadily.
Soon the saucer was standing on its tail, pointing straight up, rising atop a pillar of fire.
As the saucer climbed, it shot by two news helicopters. The cameramen beamed their pictures to the satellite. As they received the video feed, television networks broadcast it all over the globe. People in New York and Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston, Minot and Wheeling saw the rising saucer on their television screens. They saw it in London, Paris, Berlin, Cairo, Moscow, Istanbul, Baghdad, Mumbai, Tokyo, Cape Town and Sydney. And everywhere in between.
The saucer rose though the clouds and began tilting toward the northeast. Up, up, up, until it was just a star in the noonday sky and the roar of its rocket engines faded to a whisper.
Then it disappeared from sight. The sound level dropped to a kiss by the breeze; then it too was gone.
Little puffy clouds continued to drift across the Missouri countryside, under that milky sky, just as they had since the world was born, but there was no one at Egg’s farm to look at them.
7
Harrison Douglas and Johnny Murkowsky were in the lounge of the fixed-base operator at the Columbia airport when the television began airing the video of the saucer rising on a cone of fire through puffy clouds into the heavens. They were waiting for the crews of their respective private jets to complete the preflights and come for them. Air Force One had just taken off and retracted its wheels. Heidi, Murkowsky’s masseuse, was having a glass of wine in the bar.
Now, as the roar of the saucer’s rockets emanating from the speakers of the TV set filled the room, the two moguls stood in front of the idiot box shoulder to shoulder, watching.
When the saucer’s exhaust was but a pinpoint of light on the screen, Johnny turned to Douglas. “We should join forces, combine our efforts. That flying plate has to come down somewhere. When it does…”
“What is this ‘we’ shit, Kemo Sabe?” Douglas shot back bitterly. “I spent eight million bucks raising that saucer, or one like it, from the Atlantic. You’re a little late to the party, Johnny-boy.”
“Late?” Johnny Murkowsky asked incredulously. “Eight million bucks? What a skinflint you are! That kind of money is chicken feed, pocket change. Every single person on this whole round rock, all six or seven billion of ’em, will want a regular supply of those antiaging pills. We’ll be richer than Buffett and Gates combined. We’re not talking about a nice profit — we’re going to get all the money. All of it. Every last, dirty, solitary dollar.”
Harrison Douglas stared at Murkowsky.
“Man, if we work together and don’t try to sabotage each other, you and I can own this damn planet,” Johnny Murkowsky roared.
The light began to dawn for Harrison Douglas. “You’re right,” he said softly. After all, somewhere along the way he could always double-cross Johnny Murk, and probably would have to, before Murk did it to him.
“Of course I’m right! All we have to do is cooperate, get that formula one way or another. Any way we can. Then we will have to defend it, keep everyone else from ripping us off. If we can do that, we will have won the game. We’ll get all the marbles. All!”
Harrison Douglas had the same vision. “It’s possible,” he said. “A long shot, but possible.”
Murkowsky swelled up like a toad as he contemplated the future. “Maybe we’ll change the name of this planet,” he said. “Name it after ourselves.”
The president was in his private compartment aboard Air Force One, somewhere over Illinois, when he opened the computer case that Egg had given him. He reached in to pull out the computer and realized that his hand was touching bits and pieces. He emptied the computer case onto the bunk.
A pile of junk.
He stirred through the shards as the realization came to him that Egg had somehow smashed the computer before he gave it to the president.
Egg knew all along that he would eventually have to give the computer to someone, so he destroyed it before that moment arrived.